Critical fixes:- Fixed invisible fleets in mission lists.- Fixed an end-of-combat crash caused by inserting the same combat results into the game twice.- Fixed invisible Morrigi DLC Grav Boat model.- Fixed invisible Tarkasian DLC stations.- Fixed invisible Human DLC stations.- Disabled purple placeholder effect appearing on all turret muzzles when firing. Existing muzzle effects still display as they did before the last update.- Fixed an issue where Horde Zuul fleets were unable to perform missions within support range.

Other fixes:- Fixed a bug where modules were not being counted correctly on stations that players begin the game with.- Fixed an issue that was preventing foreign and alien habitation modules from being applied to stations.- Fixed support range display for stations and colonies. Note that fleets will still use their own supply and this will allow them to exceed base station and colony supply ranges represented by the white borders.

Critical fixes:- fix crash when current formation is removed.- Fixed a crash when you killed the system killer.- Fixed random, occasional crash in the encyclopedia code.- Removed nonsensical option to roll stations, which caused a crash.- Fixed a crash with proteans.- Fixed a potential crash issue in the battle manager.- Added text box filtering for ", ', and ; to prevent known crash issues (e.g. when giving ships a name).- Fixed circumstances under which canceling a mission might crash game.- Fixed bug where fleets were getting forced to center of the sun.- Fixed bug where fleets could be placed inside planets.- Post combat dialog now shows information on destroyed ships and other useful things.- Blastmissile technology now researchable.- Fixed the issue where armor damage patterns were being swapped to different ship sections between combat rounds.

- Fixed drones firing while docked on carrier parent.- Fixed spacing issue when adding a drone carrier to fleet.- Adjusted base volley and weapon range deviation (note: shotgun deviation may be a little high).- Fixed drones attachment points on some carrier sections.- Fixed so non-tracking torpedos no longer able to damage own ship.- Combat data will now be sent after determining victory status.- Added power bonus to modules.- Added default weapons to module banks.- Fixed an issue with some music not looping.- Updated the strat modifier cost when you acquire rapid prototyping.- Fixed an issue that allowed humans to see and use zuul node lines.- Fixed an issue that allowed players to do missions outside their sensor range.- Changed the stations to use 'under construction' assets when being built.- Made the first arrival of colonization missions apply the support factors from its fleet.- Added fix to ensure that randoms and grand menaces don't spawn if all of them were disabled.- Fixed missing suulka cannon beams.- Fixed auto-picked targets by ship/fleet stance (function did not always pick a valid target to pursue, stand off, or retreat from).- Ships without crew are now removed after Combat, counted as destroyed.- Fixed inaccurate locations for applied damage patterns.- Fixed a localized text thing in the empire management screen to accurately represent trade income.- Added a fix to stop the Von Neumanns from continuously building stuff.- Fixed beamers not doing damage.- Added fading to various interface elements.- Fixed bug where battleriders would show up in battle manager.- Fixed bug where stations could be built around enemy colonies.- Fleets without admirals no longer display "Defacto" as their admiral.- Combat events now show names properly.

Other changes:- Post-combat popup has been added.- Added trade view slider display.- Added in-game game and audio options.- Added categories for the option screen for all effects.

Key known issues:- The design screen must be re-entered before new Drone designs can be applied to ships.- Biomissiles and boarding pods may not appear with ship designs.- The post-combat dialog does not completely fit information for combats involving more than two players.- Certain Battle Cruisers and Destroyers can carry riders, but these are not showing up in combat.

Critical fixes:- Fixed a bug that prevented income from being generated when doing a feasibility study.- Fixed a crash that could occur when trying to automatically distribute sliders from a hidden slider.- Fixed a crash with support missions trying to open a dialog twice in a turn.- Fixed a crash that would occur if closing the game while it was booting up.- Fixed a von neumann crash caused by the faction running out of resources for a new collector fleet.- Fixed an issue with crashing gem/forge world events from trying to apply moral bonus.- Drones can now be designed and assigned to ships.- Battle Riders may now be launched and recovered via their weapon icons in combat.- Combat turn flow was rewritten. All combat queries are now answered at once, and then all combat simulations play out.- Fixed a bug that stopped biome colonizers from improving terraforming values.

Other fixes:- Fixed a recent issue where only the default player profile would be used.- Fixed tech requirements on a few freighter ship sections.- Removed "freighter" designation from ship sections to which it was incorrectly applied.- Tarka freighter savings cost has been reduced from 1.5-million to 150,000.- Leviathan stats have been improved.- Tweaked turret arcs on a number of ship and station sections.- Stations whose crew die off stop rotating in combat.- Patrol battle riders now follow their tenders better.- Fixed an issue where battle riders were not swarming around stations effectively.- Fixed feasibility speech cues from using wrong speech library.- Fixed admiral driven speech to use proper case.- Fixed researching sound.- Fixed research completed early sound cue.- Fixed the battle draw and winning battle speech cues.- Fixed under-the-hood sliders to automatically reset themselves to zero.- Fixed an issue with swarmers trying to assign themselves to systems with no planets.- Fixed an issue with the flock bonus not being used as a percentage.- Moved the overharvest warning event to the correct location to stop it spamming every time the IO was queried.- Fixed an issue that caused the gem and forge world events to spam.- Fixed battle manager bug when entering system with no Naval base.- Made visual culling much more subtle on star map to avoid labels popping in and out.- Cleaned up view filter modes, populated list through code instead of through xml.- Fixed issue in battle manager where station slots where being displayed even if no CP was available.- Properly hooked up Mission/Engine section name display to riders in rider manager.- Combat ready animations no longer loop incorrectly on ships.- Save games should stay significantly smaller now due to the disabling of a debug feature that was storing a detailed history of all previous changes.- Fixed a visual issue where tracking torpedoes would draw erroneous lines across the screen.- The trade view filter on the star map now shows different icons for star systems.- Fixed a bug that caused the admirals to return an incorrect admiral prefix to sound cues.- Fixed a bug where Liir Naval Stations were displaying Hiver station assets.- Fixed visual jitter for battle riders returning to tender.- Fixed an issue where turn events were not displaying for some.- Fixed various sizing bugs in GUI lists.- Protean pods will return attacks.- Fixed incorrect terrain names in Clouds and Ring star maps.

Other changes:- New entries have been added to the encyclopedia's Galactic Atlas.- Added new weapons: Blast Storm Missile, Polaris Blast Beam Missile- Added new Rift star map.- Added the ability to skip camera transitions with the escape key.- Added a tutorial help screen for trade.- Added Zuul freighters.- Added missing Von Neumann PD weapons.- Adjusted station visibility distances for combat.- Added default ship names for command ships, bore ships, and gate ships.- Implementation of initial, new post combat dialog.- Added trade Modifier for trade distances.- Added a table to keep track of trade results to stop clients from not being able to see trade.- Stopped the ability to trade with someone you are at war with.- Increased the max planet range for provinces by 1 ly.- Added a configuration ability for disabling the main menu combat scene. There is no user interface for this diagnostic option, but it can be modified at your own risk in

Key known issues:- There is no post-combat popup.- Screen transition time still slow for some.- Game not running in 64-bit for some (running 32-bit works).- Looking for people unable to connect to GameSpy for MP.

Fixes- Many additions to the Defense Manager, which has now been renamed to Battle Manager.- Fixed a crash with weapons doing half a population damage.- Fixed a crash with the locust updating its turn.- Fixed crash in Starmap that could occur when changing between maps in game setup quickly.- Fixed a crash during saving if using unique extended characters as part of your profile name.- Fixed a crash associated with the admiral trait True Grit.- Interaction with COL weapons temporarily disabled while fixing crash in Design Screen.- Added stance control for ships in formation in combat.- Re-implemented trade layer.- Bankruptcy system now in effect.- Biome-colonizers now active.- Increased sensor ranges.- Improved Leviathan class death sequences.

- Fixed a bug where station upkeep was not being deducted from savings.- Fixed a bug where prototype costs were not being applied to savings.- Fixed some issues with misnamed event images.- Fixed an issue where dragging and dropping fleets could in some cases duplicate them.- The game will now only keep the most recent set of log files. Old copies will be automatically deleted.- Improvements and a handful of fixes made to the meteor shower random encounter.- Fixed an issue that allowed trade points to be reused in a trade round.- Made some optimizations to the gathering of planet/system data for the budget.- Made some optimizations to the gathering of data for players with combat assets.- Fixed an issue where weapons and modules could display with incorrect materials.- Swapped battlerider reserve and wing/squad slots to make use clearer.- Added tooltips to rider squad/wing/reserve buttons.- Added trade view overlay elements to star map drawing, first pass.- Combat entrance transition now active.- Added improved visual cues when dropping into and out of accelerated time in combat.- Fixed a variety of issues with battle rider behavior in combat.- Fixed incorrect asteroid monitor locations in combat.- Fixed broken images in the encyclopedia.- Tweaked stats of engine sections.- Removed items in the Starmap Lobby will no longer remain selected.- Fixed an issue where double the number of riders were being loaded into combat.- Fixed an issue where riders would detonate instead of returning to tender.- Fixed an issue where mounted riders could prevent ships from rotating.- Tweaks to many ship sections, stations, weapons and related art.

Fixes- Fixed a crash that would occur when transitioning from the Starmap to the Main Menu screen.- Reduced time it takes to transition from sub-screens to the Starmap.- Fixed an error with AI ship names.- System Killer will no longer spawn so close to a planet.- Camera will no longer focus on the sun when placing a station.- Colonization dialog will now display appropriate text.- Autosaving will no longer append "(Autosave)" if it already exists.- Corrected an issue with trade stations not generating income.- Random encounter spawn rate will now respect the percentage set by the player.- PD Lasers will no longer incorrectly target enemy ships.

Additions- Enemy ships within sensor range but not visible will now be represented as a red diamond.- Missiles will now appear in sensor view.- Improved System Killer AI.- Some AI processing speed optimization.

- Added more variety to the default weapon loadouts of starting fleets.- Issue where sound would cut out (particularly in combat) is now resolved.- Fixed issue where ships would avoid far too high or too low while in combat.- Resolved an issue where players could enter combat without a fleet even if a fleet is available.- Fixed a bug that misrepresented the winner of a combat.

- Fixed station manager crash when while selecting a station.- AI versus AI combat routines now internalized and will no longer appear to players.- AI will now follow command point limits when creating and modifying fleets.- Added tool tips to descriptions to all sections in the design screen.- Reimplemented alien habitation modules.- Improved Spectre AI so Spectres now spread out amoung targets.- Spectres now do appropriate damage based on their size.- Fixed a slowdown due to Spectre collision error.- Admiral creation within empire now working correctly.

Other fixes and changes:

- Fixed Spectre spawn positions.- Improved Spectre AI so Spectres will move from large to small target is the opportunity arises.- Game will now start in full screen mode at native desktop resolution unless specified in options. (Game can still drop out of full screen if another program window overlaps the game. Use ALT+ENTER to return to full-screen again.)- Weapons now apply their appropriate damage pattern based on their distance from target.(All weapons were using their max pattern range, often the weakest of all ranges)- Turret fixes made to Human and Hiver Leviathans causing them to shoot through selves.- Firing arc fixes to Heavy Beam modules.- Heavy turret turn speed changes to be more realistic.- Adjustments made to Disruptor weapon attacks.- Fixed various minor bugs to station upgrades.- Fixed Zuul and Tarka combat music themes not playing.- Fixed crew death stuck above 0% (was not adding bonus crew when doing crew death calculations)- Driveless ships in formation, provided they aren't lead ship, will now fall behind and rest of formation will continue at formation speed. If the ship with the destroyed engine is lead, the formation will slow down as designed, in order to protect lead (presumablycommand) ship. Player can select ships to abandon lead ship if they wish.- Fixed planetary spotter ranges (ships can now be spotted by planets when flying past)- Planet Manger moved to its own dialog box.- Added a delay to prevent any actions from taking place until everything is ready- Compressed combat, gui and music sounds for greater efficiency.- Fixed combat random encounter data being null- fix incorrect stance facing (ship sometimes did not face target, now they will face target while in their stance)- Level 5 Science Centers disabled temporarily.

Additions:

- New badges added to all races- Additional load screen- New encyclopedia entries on Admirals.- New encyclopedia entries on Missions.- Station Modules entries in the encyclopedia complete.

Known Issues:- Sound bug remains a priority.- Close To Attack isn't working properly.- Players can enter battle without selecting the fleet they want to use- Some players seeing sorting errors with refracted surfaces (ie glass can be seen through ship as black)- Fleet isn't picked by default for combat. Player has to select fleet for combat.- Players reporting crash when attempting to upgrade planet to Gem/Forge world.

Critical fixes:- Fixed an issue where the game could crash when battle riders, drones, boarding pods, assault shuttles or bio-missiles were launched in combat.- Fixed an issue where Swarmers could crash the game while launching from the hive.- Fixed a crash that was occurring when creating new provinces.- Fixed a crash caused by incorrect retrieval of achievement states.- Fixed an issue where failure to load an asset could prevent screens from transitioning.- Fixed multi-player compatibility issues between 32- and 64-bit versions of the game.- The Continue Game button is now working.- Tool tips have been added to the combat UI.

Other fixes and changes:- Fixed an issue where public games were not being correctly published to the GameSpy master server.- AI is now more aggressive in combat and starts closer to the action. This was done to address some cases where AI versus AI combat simulation was not resolving.- Fixed known issues where modules were not being displayed on stations.- Fixed an issue where certain ship designs were not being assigned default sensor ranges.- Fixed an issue where planetary missiles were not hitting targets.- Fixed a ship avoidance issue where ships could become immobilized between a station and the planet is orbits.- Fixed issues where the game was incorrectly assessing whether players should engage in combat.- Fixed an issue where the game was not correctly determining when players had discovered each other on the star map.- Fixed issues where starting system distributions on star maps could be needlessly unbalanced.- Fixed an issue where missiles and mines were not being assigned the correct structure, causing them to be too easy to pick off.- Fixed the issue where Swarmers were not correctly pursuing moving targets.- Fixed an issue where Hiver gates were not being deployed while enemy colonies existed in the system.- Fixed an issue with lists in the GUI that was causing the Admiral Manager to present misleading data.- Fixed an issue where Battle Cruisers and Battleships were being unlocked without the correct technologies being acquired.- Fixed an issue where an incorrect large amount of terraforming damage could be applied by weapons in combat.- Fixed an issue where the Von Neumann constructs could spawn at the center of a star system.- Fixed an issue where reserve fleets were being included in sensor range checks- The System Killer's beam range has been increased.- Added missing icons to Heavy Beam modules.- Start positions for certain combat encounters have been brought in closer.- The ship HUD is no longer displayed when planets are selected in combat.- There have been a handful of fixes to various weapon and ship art files.- Fixed an issue where "easter eggs" could be spawned in colonized systems.

Additions- Game setup now automatically defaults to the maximum players for the selected map.- Missile warheads will now upgrade.- Players are now presented with the option of renaming their initial home world as a new colony.- The game launcher options dialog now includes a "Prefer 64-bit Process" checkbox. This can be unchecked to override default behavior and run the 32-bit version of the game on 64-bit operating systems.- Features have been added to the station manager: * Module descriptions have been added. * The station module build queue now displays cost. * A Max button has been added to the module build queue controls.- Changes have been made to the upgrade paths of stations to prevent certain issues where upgrades might never be possible.- The station manager now shows up as a window on the star map.- The planet information window now shows up as a window on the star map.- The redundant confirmation dialog that displayed when loading games has been removed.- The Defense Manager tray has been hidden in this update to prevent the possibility of fleets becoming on the system map.- The Liir Protectorate is now locked until the correct technology is acquired.- As a stop-gap measure the initial window resolution supplied in the game launcher options has been reduced from 1680x1050 to 1280x960. This may help newcomers to the game in cases where the initial window size is too large for certain desktop and display configurations. Others may adjust this value in the options dialog as needed.

- A new badge has been added for all factions.- The game will now start in native 64-bit mode on operating systems that support it.- Added 15 new entries to the encyclopedia.

Bug Fixes and Other Changes:

*** This update will break save games due to changes to special encounter implementation. ***

- Fixed a divide by zero crash that could occur when the game tried to trigger a rebellion on a planet with 0 civilian population.- Fixed a crash that could occur when entering the multi-player lobby.- Fixed issues where the game would hang on end turn when resolving AI versus AI combat.- Fixed issues where concurrent combat scheduling could cause game turns to hang.- Fixed an issue where the game could crash when a player attempted to save between turns.- Fixed an intermittent crash that could occur during combat.- Fixed a crash that could occur when committing an intercept mission.

- Fixed encyclopedia content appearing in the wrong locations.- Fixed issues where user interface would be unreadable when starting a game window larger than the desktop resolution.- Added more tool tips to the game lobby.- Added more tool tips to the colony information widget.- Added more tool tips to the build screen.- Added more tool tips to the certain pop-ups and to the station placement screen.

- Fixed a few outstanding localized text issues, including three descriptions in the tech tree; Spinal Mounts Heavy Fission Cannon Assimilation Plague Cure.- Re-balanced Police Cutters and some menaces.- Made improvements to Swarm Hiver, Larva and Queen art.- Fixed issues where the game window could shrink below the minimum 1024x720 resolution.- Fixed issue where minimizing the game window could cause it to go full screen instead.- Fixed an issue where Suul'ka could become available to non-Horde Zuul players via Diplomatic Stations.- Suul'ka arrival after building a Tribute station is now delayed by at least a turn.- Fixed a bug with post encounter dialog where list selections were getting mixed up.- Fixed a miscolored element of the fleet widget items.- Fixed some underlying UI layout bugs.- Fixed a bug where Gate Amplifiers would not show up in the station module list. This was preventing the upgrade of Gate stations.- Fixed a bug that was allowing built modules to be re-queued.- Fixed art issues with Tarkasian Dreadnought GOOP and Heavy Beam modules.- Fixed outstanding art issues with Human Supply Transports, Naval Outposts and Polic Cutters.- Fixed an issue where AI controlled agents running at accelerated time in simulated combat were not doing enough damage to each other.

The follow-up to the hit 4X-styled franchise will reveal the dark secrets of the ancient force responsible for tampering with the races in the original Sword of the Stars. Sword of the Stars II is a major step forward in 4X gameplay, taking the easy-to-learn-but-hard-to-master philosophy set out in SotS1 and following that path to a new standard in space strategy games.